Facebook, TikTok & online information, plus an internet ban in Myanmar
A warm welcome to our new subscribers! It's great to see you here. It's been a busy June for us at Meedan. Last week we were at Global Fact 7, the largest worldwide gathering of fact-checkers, a virtual event this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. At Global Fact 7, we announced a case study of a global fact-checking project using the WhatsApp Business API. The groundbreaking study is based on nearly 5,700 fact-checks across India, Brazil, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. We also talked about addressing health misinformation with truth, trust and tactics.
This month we were so proud to host veteran journalist and Meedan Board member Maria Ressa at our Check Global Network webinar series, Women, Media and the Pandemic. We stand in solidarity with Maria as she and Rappler fight cyber libel charges, a verdict that sets an extraordinarily damaging precedent for democracy and press freedom.
This week The Checklist brings news and misinformation from around the world - we look at platforms and their role in improving the quality of online information and we follow internet bans affecting local communities in Myanmar. As always, we have Dr. Seema Yasmin's highlights from Meedan's COVID-19 Expert Database.
Don't forget to share the Checklist with your friends and family! Happy reading.
Top COVID-19 questions
Journalist and medical doctor, Dr. Seema Yasmin shares weekly highlights from Meedan's COVID-19 Expert Database
What do we know about pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: There is concern about transmission by people without symptoms because this makes disease prevention more challenging. For example, while it is a helpful public health measure to recommend that people self-isolate when ill, it is insufficient to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus when someone who never develops symptoms or who has not yet developed symptoms can still infect others. In some recent publications, it is estimated that 6-45% of reported novel coronavirus infections may be due to asymptomatic and/or pre-symptomatic transmissions.
Seema says: "This is an important question to address because disease spread from infected people without symptoms - a phenomenon initially thought to be an unlikely driver of the pandemic - is now thought to account for 25 to 45 percent of disease spread. But inconsistent use of the terms asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic by health officials has caused confusion. At a June 8 WHO press conference, technical lead Maria van Kerkhove, said asymptomatic spread “appears to be rare.” But she used asymptomatic to refer to people who might actually develop symptoms at a later time, and the more appropriate term for these individuals is pre-symptomatic. Infected people who feel healthy but will eventually develop symptoms - pre-symptomatic cases - are currently thought to pose a greater transmission risk than people who will never show symptoms. To add to the confusion, the WHO's definition of asymptomatic people is narrow and includes only those who never develop symptoms, although in reality, some people who are deemed asymptomatic are actually pre-symptomatic - they’re just not sick yet. The press conference sparked confusion about the role of people without symptoms in driving infections and spread the wrong message, to some, that people without symptoms rarely spread the virus. But it’s important to know that people without symptoms - especially those who will eventually feel sick - can spread the virus. Deliberate word choices and careful explanations are especially important during a rapidly evolving situation where millions of lives are at stake."
Why has Iceland had fewer deaths of Covid-19 than other countries?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: Iceland has a small population spread over a much larger geography, with hundreds of miles of the Atlantic Ocean separating it from the rest of the Nordic region. This gives it a natural advantage in fighting an infectious disease, like COVID-19 that spreads through people and whose transmission increases exponentially in high density areas. In addition, Iceland took very rapid decisions to start preparing to respond to the virus on its territory and prevent infections transmission, as soon as they observed the pandemic unfolding in China and Europe, even before cases were registered in Iceland. Hospitals were testing people arriving from abroad for a month before the first confirmed case, and a media campaign urged hand washing and social distancing. The country put early restrictions on nursing homes to protect vulnerable segments of the population, and also closed high schools and universities.
Seema says: "Analyzing the public health responses of other nations offers useful pointers for successful pandemic response strategies. Iceland, a nation of 360,000 people, didn’t just flatten the curve, it practically eliminated the new coronavirus - even surprising its top epidemiologist. At the heart of its aggressive response was early testing and tracking, including testing people without symptoms. Over a six week period, one in seven Icelanders was tested for Covid-19, the biggest proportion of any nation. But pandemic preparedness plans were also key to Iceland’s success. Epidemiologists in Iceland have been testing and reviewing the nation’s global pandemic response strategies for the past 16 years."
What do we know so far about dexamethasone as a potential treatment for COVID-19?
From the COVID-19 Expert Database: Dexamethasone is a low-cost, anti-inflammatory medication that is part of the corticosteroid family. Corticosteroids function similarly to the cortisol produced in the body's adrenal glands yet they are synthetically made. Corticosteroids are commonly prescribed to suppress the immune system and reduce swelling and itching common to allergic reactions.
Dexamethasone has not been approved as an official treatment for COVID-19 outside the United Kingdom thus far, and the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged caution since these results are preliminary, have yet to be evaluated through the peer-review process, and represent findings from only one trial. Despite this, the medication is currently being used in several countries as a part of various treatment strategies for COVID-19. The WHO has also recently added dexamethasone and other steroids into its treatment guidelines for COVID-19.
In two other recent studies using corticosteroidal medications (including dexamethasone) as potential treatments for COVID-19, one found a reduction in the number of days patients required ventilator support, and the other found that the corticosteroid medications were associated with an increased duration of illness (among other adverse impacts). Corticosteroids, including dexamethasone, are still an unproven treatment for COVID-19.
Seema says: "This cheap and widely available anti-inflammatory medicine has been used for decades and recently found useful in the treatment of some Covid-19 patients. The results of a British study of 6,425 patients, a third of whom received dexamethasone, were first made available in a brief press release in mid-June. A week later, the still formally unpublished and not yet peer-reviewed study was shared. The press release had generated optimistic headlines about the number of lives that could have been saved had British doctors started using the drug on Covid-19 patients earlier. But a look at the data showed that while the drug might prove useful for those who had been sick for more than a week and who were receiving supplemental oxygen, less sick patients who were not receiving oxygen died at a slightly higher rate compared to similar patients who did not receive the drug. This finding was not statistically significant but raised concerns for some doctors that the drug might have different effects on patients depending on the severity of their illness and the timing of treatment relative to disease onset. Reporters and the public are increasingly exposed to pre-prints, studies that have not been peer reviewed. This data needs careful review before it generates misleading headlines."
Top stories
It's not just TikTok - another 53 iOS apps will snatch your clipboard data (TechRadar)
After the discovery back in March that popular video-sharing service TikTok was accessing content held on iOS users’ clipboards, the company promised to address the issue. Despite this, it was found that TikTok still accesses clipboard data - and much more frequently than first thought. The app scrapes information whenever the user enters a punctuation mark or presses the spacebar; in other words, every few seconds.
“For TikTok, this was triggered by a feature designed to identify repetitive, spammy behavior. We have already submitted an updated version of the app to the App Store removing the anti-spam feature to eliminate any potential confusion.”— A TikTok spokesperson
Facebook to label all rule-breaking posts - even Trump’s (AP News)
Facebook said that it will flag all “newsworthy” posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from President Donald Trump. The social network is taking additional steps to counter election-related misinformation. In particular, the social network will begin adding new labels to all posts about voting that will direct users to authoritative information from state and local election officials.
"The policies we’re implementing today are designed to address the reality of the challenges our country is facing and how they’re showing up across our community." — Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook
Parts Of Myanmar Unaware Of COVID-19 Due To Internet Ban, Rights Advocates Say (NPR)
An Internet shutdown that began a year ago in parts of Myanmar is keeping some villages unaware of the coronavirus pandemic, humanitarian groups say. Restrictions on mobile Internet were put in place in eight townships in the state of Rakhine – and one in nearby Chin state — in June of last year amid fighting between the country's military and an ethnic minority, the Rakhine, and their Arakan Army.
The ban in Maungdaw township was lifted in May. Still, some 1 million people are affected in the war torn area, said Human Rights Watch, which is calling for an immediate lifting of the shutdown in the eight remaining townships. Human Rights Watch adds that the government has also blocked websites of independent and ethnic news sites alleging they were supplying "fake news".
"With armed conflict between the Myanmar military and Arakan Army in Rakhine State amid a pandemic, it's critical for civilians to get the information needed to stay safe." — Linda Lakhdhir, Asia legal adviser at Human Rights Watch.
What’s new at Meedan
Highlights from our team
It was a week of action - partnerships, panels and a lot more:
Leveraging the COVID-19 Expert Database to visualize pandemic information:
We worked with Students Against COVID-19 to illustrate responses to Covid-19 misinformation
Nigeria Health Watch Partners with Meedan to counter COVID-19 misinformation in Nigeria:
We're partnering with health communications organization Nigeria Health Watch to counter misinformation around COVID-19 and other public health challenges in Nigeria.
25 grassroots projects awarded through the Check Global COVID-19 Fund:
In the interest of reaching out to new organizations in need during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Check Global team announced a call to support media organizations and media workers in emerging economies through a series of microgrants. The microgrants projects ranged amongst fact-checking projects, media literacy campaigns and daily blogging reflecting on applicants’ quarantine realities. We were blown away by the popularity of our call, receiving a whooping 298 applications in less than 30 days! We awarded 25 projects with funding that ranged between $300 and $2,500, for a total of $52,000.